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Kinnu Superpower Learning — A new way to explore and learn about the world
Kinnu is a gamified learning engine to explore new ideas and master anything. Take 1 part science of learning, add 1 part gaming overworld, shake and serve. We want to change the way 1b people learn and that means rethinking how we learn from the bottom up.
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Samarth Reddy
Great app. True meaning of learning made fun.
I have few suggestions.
1. As we get older mobile screens are too small to read and hold in hand for long duration. This is true for people in knowledge areas such as professors and scholars. Can there be a web app? To see it in big screen?
2. Highlighting text and exporting notes. It would be easier for us to once we learn we make a note of it. The app itself is good with spaced repetition etc. but I would like to export and print notes sometimes to handout them as references to students.
3. I think a subscription model is incoming which is more than welcome. I would recommend if there is a education discount it would be great.
Thanks 🎉
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@samarth_reddy thank you! this is great feedback.
1. we have messed around with this and will continue to do so for exactly the reasons you mentioned. We do think that there's a lot of 'vampire time' where a phone is the better medium, but both media have their place.
2. yes! also something we have in the pipeline (you are on it)
3. we actually have no idea what business model will be. I think a lot of people have subscription fatigue so we're looking at other ideas. We also want to make sure we don't exclude anyone. Learning should not be discriminatory on income.
Thank you for your feedback and ideas!
@samarth_reddy Thank you for your amazingly helpful comments! While there is no web app (yet!), we already go through a lot of effort to publish all of our content on our website https://kinnu.xyz/kinnuverse/. However, so far you cannot fully engage with the most valuable aspects of the website (tracking your progress as you learn) using the website. I will make sure we re-open the debate about that!
@jamesyflo Thank you for the feedback James, glad you like the maps - we are looking to make them even more fun in the next iteration!
@jamesyflo Hi James - its great to hear you love the knowledge map! We think it has a ton of potential which we've not even scratched the surface of yet.
Hey Product Hunt!
🥋 "I know kung fu." Neo's immortal line from the Matrix is where the quest to build the ultimate learning product started.
A pre-seed round with some amazing folks from Spark Capital, Google Ventures, Jigsaw and other incredible angels later, we decided it was time to finally pull the trigger on Product Hunt, but we're freaking nervous as hell!
We've been so humbled by the feedback we've gotten from our early users who get what we're trying to do with Kinnu - change the way 1b people learn. We felt now was the time to share it with you guys as well and learn from the best product community on the internet.
We'd love to know what you think. Learning is our thing after all!
@koacx @hanna_celina congrats on the launch! Really love the visual representation of learning topics. as a visual person myself, I find it much easier to track progress and plan the next steps this way. One idea to keep people engaged in keep learning more is having some sort of “progress check” where you ask users random questions about topics they’ve recently learned. Another idea would be to prompt them with a “teaser” of upcoming modules. e.g. “complete the next lesson and you’ll be able to do x,y,z” or “2 more lessons until you finish level 1 of “topic”… there are many gamification techniques you can use to keep people engaged and help them achieve their learning objectives. Curious to know what you guys come up with next :)
Really enjoying dipping into Kinnu for 10 mins a day. Feel like I’m also remembering the information for a change. Looking forward to seeing how it develops.
@pjwilkinson Thank you Philip! Do you find you use the text or audio mode more? Which topics would you like us to publish next?
Since we started Kinnu we have been quite surprised by what a broad group of people find the app useful:
- students, people with university degrees, and ones who never went
- professionals who have just started their career, middle-aged people and of course also retirees
- engineers but also artists and teachers, construction workers and retired army officers
- new moms and widows
- all kinds of other eclectics and self-improvers
We are glad to be serving such a broad audience, and to see that literally anyone alive seems to love learning!
Everyone is busy, but everyone is curious.
Our app is really in MVP still, but we promise that it can help you
- get the satisfaction of actually learning, not just skimming through an endless sea of new content
- find things you can apply in your daily lives (at work and in conversation)
- broaden your horizons by showing you what you don’t yet know
We are adding new content every week and have a 50+ learning pathway library to prioritise for launching, so it would be great to hear what topics you would like to learn on Kinnu.
I've been using Kinnu for a few weeks now and it's been great so far, looking forward to it growing and adding more pathways.
I appreciate the updates and improvements to the flow, and I'm actually remembering what I learn, which is the main thing!
@krystian_szastok thank you! Re. flow, the team have been on fire working on making it faster, smoother and the new pathways in the works I think you'll really enjoy!
@krystian_szastok Thank you Krystian! If remembering what you learn is what you like the most about the app, then you will really enjoy the updates we will be launching soon to questions!
I really like the simplicity of learning a new topic, without the pressure to 'get out the books' - super easy to upgrade my understanding of topics. Are you adding links for further reading, after I have finished a path?
Kudos on the onboarding as well - I can immediately start exploring pathways, which makes it so much easier than signing up for any learning system elsewhere.
@filip_filipov thanks for your feedback Filip! In a related idea to adding further links: a 'moment of delight' our users are reporting is when they can immediately use what they know, so we're experimenting building that in to the product directly.
And thanks re. onboarding! We love the idea users can just experiment with the app without creating account, it's a much more 'honest' experience
@filip_filipov Great to hear you are enjoying the app - the idea to add links is an amazing one that we will definitely consider for our product roadmap - seems to be quite a popular request from the community!
I love the app. Kinnu takes gamified learning to the next level. The team is fantastic and truly delivering something special – excited to see how it continues to evolve!!
@jeremypsutton It's been amazing to see how your amazingly well written content flies in our app. Let us know if we can make the app better for you as a user!
@jeremypsutton Thanks Jeremy! We're really lucky to be working with such talented people on both the product and the content side. If there's ever anything you can think of, anything at all, that we can do to improve Kinnu, please let us know - we're a learning company after all!
@jeremypsutton Thanks Jeremy! We're really proud of the content that we've created, and super grateful for you support and expertise.
@koacx Thanks, Christopher, I love the vision of Kinnu and looking forward to working through the AI content on the App – I'll come back with some feedback as I go through !!
@hanna_celina Thanks so much, Hanna, I've only had a quick look at the AI pathway within the app but it works really well, so all credit to the team for creating something so beautiful!! I'll capture some feedback as I go through.
I love Kinnu! It’s great for memory retention and learning about complex topics. Eg I was able to cite off the top of my head a fact about the Great Recession of 1929 recently thanks to their pathway on macroeconomics, which is my current favourite 😊
@mona_hakim Glad to hear you're enjoying the app Mona! If you liked the Macroeconomics pathway you might also like our fresh-off-the-press pathway on AI which we wrote in collaboration with DeepMind's Director of Product Mehdi Ghissassi.
@mona_hakim Hi Mona, that's great to hear! The Macroeconomics pathway is one of my favorites as well.
Kinnu is such an exciting project, and I always get a buzz when a new pathway pops up on my phone. Artificial Intelligence, Greek Philosophy, Film Theory — what will the octopodes come up with next??
@hugh_davies Thank you! What would you like for us to come up with next? How about psychedelics? Data science? World history? Neurodiversity?
@hanna_celina @hugh_davies thanks for your feedback! We're looking into neurodiversity now
In the past, I would read about something and then forget most of it. Kinnu really helps me remember all the detail, and makes it fun. I wish I had this all along, I can't imagine how much more I would know about the world if this existed ten years ago! It makes for great dinner party conversation, too, being able to talk about all these topics and remember all the interesting details. I've even been using it as my secret weapon for university, instead of reading the textbooks (but don't tell anyone). I'm actually kind of surprised at how much information I can retain on all these different topics. Excited for more pathways...
@jake_mcmahon thank you so much man. It's feedback like this that makes it all worthwhile, everyone is fired up!
@jake_mcmahon Thanks Jake! So glad you are enjoying learning with Kinnu. We really try to make it Real learning, not just surface stuff, so glad to see it is working for you.
As a humanities researcher just starting out in higher ed teaching I've previously wondered about the market for something like Kinnu. I'm excited to see it's being developed by such experts in the field of learning technology design. With such a team I have no doubt it will be an enormous success and look forward to following its progress.
@beth_kidd thank you Beth, this means the world. We believe there's so much we can do with product and technology to increase learning speed, this is just the beginning!
@beth_kidd Amazing to hear! We try out best! Let us know if you have any ideas about how to make the app even better for you as a user!
Super excited to see how this app develops - particularly some of the aspects that relate to social learning with other people. I also can’t wait to try out some of the new content soon!
@dylan_winward Glad you like the progress so far and thank you for being with us from the beginning!
@dylan_winward thank you for all your help bringing Kinnu to life Dylan!
Congrats Kinnu team on building a real learning engine! Over so many years we have seen too many edutainment apps and services forgetting about true learning design. This is one of the only casual and fun learning apps I've seen since Duolingo 😉
@frank_albert_coates Thank you! We are soon launching a series of articles to explain about how our learning engine actually works. We are lucky to stand on the shoulders of giants such as SuperMemo, who designed the original spaced repetition algorithm, but we've already done quite a lot of tweaking helping people better balance work load to stay engaged.
Most courses bore me. They are too overwhelming. Suddenly, it turned out that Kinnu, apart from studying, gives me an adventure. This is great. Great work! Thanks
@wojtek_krosnowski We are so glad that Kinnu gives you a sense of adventure!
@wojtek_krosnowski thank you! that's exactly what we're after at Kinnu. Learning can be so much better than how it is today, and we want to build it for 1b people. ❤️
As a busy mom and business owner, my free time is limited. Kinnu's interface not only engages me immediately but also motivates me to progress through the pathways. I have loved being able to learn in bite-sized blocks when I get a few free minutes. I have also been surprised by my children's interest in what I am doing because, so often, we forget that learning is as valuable for adults as it is for kids.
@caitlin_van_wyk thank you Caitlin! And completely agree, learning is something that should never stop. We draw a lot of inspiration from how kids are interacting with tech for learning, so if you discover something with them that seems to tap into a deeper drive to learn, we'd love to hear about it!
@caitlin_van_wyk Thanks Caitlin, your support is super appreciated!
Hi Kinnu team!
Thanks for the app! My hunger for more is growing with each new topic I explore.
Btw, I love the audio option! It makes learning so easy and accesible, for visual and auditory learners (and for busy people like me!)
@charo_prieto We actually have lots of questions about the audio option - how would you like to be asked the questions (if at all) in the audio mode? Do you do them on screen when you come back to the app?
Kinnu is absolutely an amazing app. I love it so much that I'm going out of my way just to be able to let other people know about it on here, and no I don't work for them or know any of the developers lol. I recently went thru a lot of brain trama and was having a really hard time with my cognitive functions and being able to think or speak clearly, I had zero attention span. With the help of this app and it's really unique way of letting you learn things it helped me immensely. Plus the topics are really interesting and I love that they do things in a way to help you retain to the knowledge, which is always my biggest challenge. Highly recommend for Anyone!
@primary_wonder Thank you so much. Not sure you even realise how much a comment like yours means to the development team behind Kinnu. A heartfelt thank you! If there is anything we can do better, we would love your feedback!
@primary_wonder it's feedback like yours that gives everything we do meaning. thank you so much. If there's every anything you'd like to share to help us improve Kinnu for you, we'd love to know. Keep on learning!
@dan_shibu you're talking our dream Dan. Humans will always have a role for the empathy and connection, but tech and product can play a huge part in increasing access to knowledge - beyond just access to content which has been the focus of most 'edtech' companies to date.
Great app, and great ideas behind it!
I'm an avid reader who's keen to learn about new topics. I also love to memorize, and feel I have acquired clear anchor points to a given domain before moving on to the next one. I also want to feel that when I'm using my phone, I'm reading about what *I* selected.
I feel that Kinnu has the potential to optimize for the sweet spot between these aspirations. Better yet, the UX feels flexible enough that it could ultimately cater to my own needs, or to someone with a very different utility function.
The starting set of topics was already diverse and nicely curated, turns out the more recent ones are equally exciting. Can't wait to see what's next!
@sgtjohn74 Thanjs Jon, glad you're enjoying new topics added (AI, history). If you're en email subscriber we will always let you know when we add more!